Page 58 of Take Me, Sir

“Nope.” He kissed my temple. “It was when she tried to sell her baby brother to the old woman who just moved in downstairs.”

I found myself still laughing as the vision ended, but then the sound faded and I remembered that I was standing on the beach, alone. A bolt of longing went through me, something so sharp and so real that it almost made me bend over.

I wanted that life.

Shit.

I wanted all of it. A life with an unplanned pregnancy and an emergency c-section. A life with a dark-haired little girl and a blonde boy. Wild kids who drove me nuts. Kids who were scary smart or crazy creative or beautifully average. A man who loved me.

No, not a man.

Dean.

He was the man I wanted that life with, and the realization scared the hell out of me. Sure, I'd been thinking about a relationship with him, and some part of my brain made me think about what that would mean, but this was the first time I'd thought something so clear, seen something so vivid.

I'd read his texts as they'd come in, and I'd been sure that, at some point, he would get tired of not getting a response, but he hadn't. He'd sounded concerned, but not angry. But I hadn't been able to bring myself to reply, no matter how much I wanted to.

My phone buzzed, and as I reached for it, I told myself that I was going to answer it this time. I would talk to Dean. Meet with him. Talk about what happened and make it work. I would be honest about all of this and see if the vision I'd had could become a reality.

Except when I looked at the screen of my phone, it wasn't Dean's name that came up. It was a picture from an unknown number.

A picture that stopped my heart and changed everything.

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